


Self-Preservation

by Chichuri



Category: Fringe
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-02-12
Updated: 2009-02-12
Packaged: 2017-10-03 13:08:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 575
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18448
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Chichuri/pseuds/Chichuri
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Olivia's still staring at the lights when Peter hits the elevators and jabs the down button.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Self-Preservation

**Author's Note:**

> Beta'd by [](http://alamo-girl80.livejournal.com/profile)[**alamo_girl80**](http://alamo-girl80.livejournal.com/), who still deserves cookies. And chocolate.

Olivia's still staring at the damned lights when Peter hits the elevators and jabs the down button. He can practically _hear_ her in there, focusing every fiber of her being on something so fucking irrational it puts Walter to shame.

What the hell is she _thinking_?

There's fearless and there's fucking stupid, and she catapulted into the latter about two nanoseconds after she decided to implement this crazy-ass mess of a plan.

People don't _do_ that. They don't fucking sacrifice their lives on a billion to one long shot, that maybe, _maybe_ the insane sociopath is telling the truth. Not even if hundreds of lives are at risk. Or more, depending on wind currents and dispersal patterns, but that doesn't matter because intelligent, rational people don't _do_ that. Intelligent, rational people have the fucking common sense to know when to fold their cards and get the fuck out of the game.

Except for her. The woman jumps off buildings and scrambles her brain cells with barely a second thought, so long as she has the slightest chance of solving the case or saving the day. Clearly something is just _wrong_ in her head, some essential trait for self-preservation missing from her genetic makeup.

She's insane.

And now she's all alone in there, praying for that long shot to come in. Focused on the "what if" and not on the "what will be" while she stands defiant against the inevitable.  Eyes about to scar closed, nose and mouth about to become plugged. Clawing for air until unconsciousness is a mercy and death a sure thing.

_His_ chances are better than fifty/fifty if he gets while the getting is good. He can hunker down somewhere safe before the windows blow and everyone exposed chokes. If he goes down he might make it out of this madhouse he should have known better than to get caught up in.

The elevator doors open.

He shakes his head. A billion to one odds that she'll succeed and she's back there, refusing to give up. She's risking herself and everything they've worked for on the impossible chance she can save a few hundred people.

Not that impossible means much anymore, given the fucked up world he's now living in.

He stalks into the elevator and stares at the back wall, remembering her arm trembling under his iron grip, her eyes wide and pupils dilated. Not fearless, he realizes. She'd been terrified beneath her certainty. Terrified, and he left her to die alone.

The doors start to close.

Fuck.

_He's_ insane.

He gets his hand between the doors just before they shut and slips through the opening before he has time to think about what he's doing, forcing himself onwards against every instinct that screams at him to run.

Better a death of his choosing than an anonymous bullet in the dead of night, right?

Right?

She hasn't moved, still engaged in a staring match with the light board of the damned bomb, figure slender and resolute against the Boston skyline. All he can do is watch, bracing himself against the coming explosion and hoping she can pull this off.

If anyone can buck impossible odds, it's her.

And if she doesn't? Well. That he didn't leave her to do this alone should probably be some sort of twisted comfort to both of them.

She stares at the lights; he stares at her.

And one by one, the lights blink out.


End file.
